7 ms·

There's electron, and there's electron-type apps. Vscode is pretty snappy and relatively light to the point it's not prohibitively expensive to run it, for exa

There's electron, and there's electron-type apps. Vscode is pretty snappy and relatively light to the point it's not prohibitively expensive to run it, for example.

wdb 7y ago
Main problem I have is that it keeps using 100% CPU on my Mac most of the times which doesn't make it easy to run Docker/K3s alongside
robenkleene 7y ago
I always see Visual Studio Code trotted out as an example of a relatively fast Electron app. I do use Visual Studio Code (for complicated reasons), but if I were to describe it to someone, the first thing I'd mention is that opening a new window (i.e., the `⇧⌘N` shortcut) is incredibly slow. For this action, it's easily the slowest of any application I use regularly, I can count to three before the window appears, a normal application is ready for input practically instantaneously.
mehrdadn 7y ago
VSCode makes me want to tear my eyes out.
dschuessler 7y ago
I use a 2013 MacBook Air and while I really like Vscode for its features, UI responses are constantly lagging. Native apps feel like they react an order of magnitude faster. It's ok, but "snappy" really is the last description I would think of when using Vscode.
bovermyer 7y ago
VSCode is the fastest Electron app, so it's fair to use it for comparison to native apps. It's slow compared to Sublime Text 3, which is probably the closest alternative. And compared to vim, VSCode is positively glacial.
- cylon13 7y ago
  As long as there's no latency when actually editing text, which is my experience with vscode, I don't think it's that big of an issue. As someone that's moved from vim+plugins to vscode, I'll take the few milliseconds of latency here and there as the price of having an environment where everything just seems to work out of the box, including plugins. Sure vim is snappier, but does it really matter if I have to constantly debug why youcompleteme isn't finding my header files or whatever. Theoretically that doesn't have to be trade off. Theoretically it's possible to build an editor like vscode with a native interface. In the actual world it doesn't exist for whatever reason, so I'm going to keep using vscode.
  - hashkb 7y ago
    Theoretically it's possible to have a not-buggy vim. It's not fair to exclude everyone who is able to configure a more performant editor just because you can't. Your claim that "in the actual world it doesn't exist" is just not true. Thousands of lifetime vim/emacs users are scratching their heads.
    - cylon13 7y ago
      Configuration is maintenance that I'd rather not do, it's not a matter of "can't". I used vim as my main editor for years, and I had it very much configured to my liking. Any time you have to set up plugins for a new language or a new environment though, it can be annoying, which is why I started using vscode as a front-end for neovim. Now I have a nice-feeling well-supported IDE with all the power of vim for editing.
      - hashkb 7y ago
        Okay; my response was to what you said, which was that my editor doesn't exist.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- 7y ago
arghwhat 7y ago
Either you use Electron or you don't. VSCode is handling a lot of the heavier stuff in C++, but it's still an Electron app, with the sluggishness that comes with it. Compared to things like nvim or sublime text 3, VSCode performance ranges from "meh" to "ugh". It's true that VSCode is somewhat usable (unlike Atom). However, it is not impressive, despite so much effort being put into its performance (including a vast amount of core code being written in C++). For this reason, I take VSCode as the perfect counter-argument to Electron: It shows you that the absolute best case is somewhere between poor and mediocre responsiveness with pretty high resource consumption for the task. (Anyone who finds VSCode to be snappy is either too used to the sluggishness of web, unfamiliar with how a responsive application feels, or has just thrown so much hardware at the problem that it ends up being decent.)
- exdsq 7y ago
  I’m the latter - a 12 core Ryzen 3900X means even Visual Studio itself feels snappy! Seriously though, VSCode isn’t bad. I use it on my Surface Pro (dual core i5) without any issues. It’s a nice app.
- kup0 7y ago
  I like VSCode but also agree. Once you've felt the speed of native, like Sublime Text 3, especially when opening and working with a lot of files at once, it's really hard to use anything else, IMHO That said, there are use cases for VSCode that don't really apply to ST3, etc
- pjmlp 7y ago
  The React Native team at Microsoft does occasional jabs at Electron performance (check their BUILD and IGNITE talks). I have this hope that they eventually will trigger VSCode's rewrite into React Native.
- qppo 7y ago
  I mean I use vs code daily and don't think it's any less "snappy" than a native app. Quite the opposite really, Chromium's rendering engine is faster than most native cross platform toolkits. The memory consumption doesn't bother me either or come anywhere close to bottlenecking me, because I'm a professional using professional hardware. Sublime is also pretty featureless compared to VSCode as well.

There's electron, and there's electron-type apps. Vscode is pretty snappy and relatively light to the point it's not prohibitively expensive to run it, for example.

wdb 7y ago

Main problem I have is that it keeps using 100% CPU on my Mac most of the times which doesn't make it easy to run Docker/K3s alongside

robenkleene 7y ago

I always see Visual Studio Code trotted out as an example of a relatively fast Electron app. I do use Visual Studio Code (for complicated reasons), but if I were to describe it to someone, the first thing I'd mention is that opening a new window (i.e., the `⇧⌘N` shortcut) is incredibly slow. For this action, it's easily the slowest of any application I use regularly, I can count to three before the window appears, a normal application is ready for input practically instantaneously.

mehrdadn 7y ago

VSCode makes me want to tear my eyes out.

dschuessler 7y ago

I use a 2013 MacBook Air and while I really like Vscode for its features, UI responses are constantly lagging. Native apps feel like they react an order of magnitude faster. It's ok, but "snappy" really is the last description I would think of when using Vscode.

bovermyer 7y ago

VSCode is the fastest Electron app, so it's fair to use it for comparison to native apps. It's slow compared to Sublime Text 3, which is probably the closest alternative. And compared to vim, VSCode is positively glacial.

cylon13 7y ago
As long as there's no latency when actually editing text, which is my experience with vscode, I don't think it's that big of an issue. As someone that's moved from vim+plugins to vscode, I'll take the few milliseconds of latency here and there as the price of having an environment where everything just seems to work out of the box, including plugins. Sure vim is snappier, but does it really matter if I have to constantly debug why youcompleteme isn't finding my header files or whatever. Theoretically that doesn't have to be trade off. Theoretically it's possible to build an editor like vscode with a native interface. In the actual world it doesn't exist for whatever reason, so I'm going to keep using vscode.
- hashkb 7y ago
  Theoretically it's possible to have a not-buggy vim. It's not fair to exclude everyone who is able to configure a more performant editor just because you can't. Your claim that "in the actual world it doesn't exist" is just not true. Thousands of lifetime vim/emacs users are scratching their heads.
  - cylon13 7y ago
    Configuration is maintenance that I'd rather not do, it's not a matter of "can't". I used vim as my main editor for years, and I had it very much configured to my liking. Any time you have to set up plugins for a new language or a new environment though, it can be annoying, which is why I started using vscode as a front-end for neovim. Now I have a nice-feeling well-supported IDE with all the power of vim for editing.
    - hashkb 7y ago
      Okay; my response was to what you said, which was that my editor doesn't exist.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
7y ago

arghwhat 7y ago

Either you use Electron or you don't. VSCode is handling a lot of the heavier stuff in C++, but it's still an Electron app, with the sluggishness that comes with it. Compared to things like nvim or sublime text 3, VSCode performance ranges from "meh" to "ugh". It's true that VSCode is somewhat usable (unlike Atom). However, it is not impressive, despite so much effort being put into its performance (including a vast amount of core code being written in C++). For this reason, I take VSCode as the perfect counter-argument to Electron: It shows you that the absolute best case is somewhere between poor and mediocre responsiveness with pretty high resource consumption for the task. (Anyone who finds VSCode to be snappy is either too used to the sluggishness of web, unfamiliar with how a responsive application feels, or has just thrown so much hardware at the problem that it ends up being decent.)

exdsq 7y ago
I’m the latter - a 12 core Ryzen 3900X means even Visual Studio itself feels snappy! Seriously though, VSCode isn’t bad. I use it on my Surface Pro (dual core i5) without any issues. It’s a nice app.
kup0 7y ago
I like VSCode but also agree. Once you've felt the speed of native, like Sublime Text 3, especially when opening and working with a lot of files at once, it's really hard to use anything else, IMHO That said, there are use cases for VSCode that don't really apply to ST3, etc
pjmlp 7y ago
The React Native team at Microsoft does occasional jabs at Electron performance (check their BUILD and IGNITE talks). I have this hope that they eventually will trigger VSCode's rewrite into React Native.
qppo 7y ago
I mean I use vs code daily and don't think it's any less "snappy" than a native app. Quite the opposite really, Chromium's rendering engine is faster than most native cross platform toolkits. The memory consumption doesn't bother me either or come anywhere close to bottlenecking me, because I'm a professional using professional hardware. Sublime is also pretty featureless compared to VSCode as well.